Heydenreich, Gunnar, Lucas Cranach the Elder: Painting Materials, Techniques, and Workshop Practice, Amsterdam, 2007, 462pp, including a survey of the artist's picture frames, pp.75-91, focusing on the 20 or so pictures which arguably retain their original frames, dating from 1509 onwards, whether engaged, applied or rebated. The earliest is the National Gallery's dyptych, Johann the Steadfast with his son Johann Friedrich. Some pictures were painted in their frame, some begun without frames but had frames added before they were finished and some not framed until completed. Cranach's simple profiles developed from the half-round hollow to the ogee. The survey is divided by sections: construction, profiles, decorations and interim framing.

Kahsnitz, Rainer, Carved altarpieces: masterpieces of the Late Gothic, 2006, 480pp with numerous excellent photographs by Achim Bunz. A survey of large and elaborate late Gothic carved altarpieces in Germany, Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic, dating to 1460 to 1530, and notable for their gilt and polychrome sculpted figures, together with some paintings, set in elaborate tracery.

von Roenne, Bettina, Ein Architekt rahmt Bilder: Karl Friedrich Schinkel und die Berliner Gemäldegalerie, exh. cat., Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, 2007, 144pp, numerous illustrations, mostly in colour. Published to coincide with an exhibition of picture frames designed by the 19th-century German architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, with chapters on Schinkel as a picture designer, his work for what is now the Berliner Gemäldegalerie, and on the nature of his picture framing materials. The catalogue reproduces numerous frames, preparatory drawings and interior gallery views. It includes about a third of the 600 or so frames which Schinkel designed between 1827 and 1830 as ‘livery frames' for the museum which he had built, predominantly for Old Masters, and concludes with a small section devoted to his earlier and later activities in designing picture frames for other collections, mainly for paintings by contemporary artists.

Siefert, Helge, Rahmenkunst: Auf Spurensuche in der Alten Pinakothek, Munich, 2010, 264pp, numerous illustrations, published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, with chapters on the production of picture frames in the 18th century, on frames as depicted in 17th-century paintings in the Munich collection, on the framing styles found in different German princely collections including Schleissheim, Düsseldorf and Bayreuth and, by Verena Friedrich, on picture frames made for the Residenz at Würzburg (1725-79) illustrated by seven 18th-century designs. The book concludes with straightforward catalogue entries for 91 framed paintings dating between 1560 and 1830, each frame illustrated in colour but with no sections; these frames are primarily German but also Dutch, with a few Flemish, French and Austrian examples. There is a glossary and bibliography.

Spindler, Sabine, Bilderrahmen des Klassizismus und der Romantik 1780-1850, Spindlerfinearts, 2007, 168pp, c.200 mainly colour illustrations. A study, organized by style, of German frames from the late 18th to the mid-19th century, including neo-classical, Biedermeier, and revivals of Gothic and Baroque patterns. Austrian and provincial frames are included. Each chapter comprises an essay on the particular style, richly illustrated with images of (usually empty) frames, ornamental details, and line drawings of the profiles. Occasional reproductions of interior hangings, contemporary engravings, and framed works in different media set the discussions in a wider context. A list of important German carvers, gilders, cabinetmakers and ebonists of the period is appended.